Baha’u’llah tells us that the beginning of our understanding of God is that God is unknowable.  Seems like a funny place to start, but the point is that the Intelligence that is at the root of all that exists is not something we can know like we know other things.  We understand ideas and objects by surrounding them with our mind. In the case of material objects, we weigh them, measure them, describe their color…etc, but God is not like that in any way.  God surrounds us.

One of the best explanations of this comes from the great religion of Islam- from the Prophet’s son-in-law and the founder of Islamic philosophy and theology- Ali Ibn Abu Talib (“Ali”). 

God is not like any object that the human mind can conceive.  No attribute can be ascribed to Him which bears the least resemblance to any quality of which human beings have perception from their knowledge of material objects…He is with every object, not from resemblance or nearness.  He is outside everything but not from separation or indifference towards His creatures. He works and creates but not in the meaning of motions or actions….He has no relation to matter, time and space.

Recognizing that God is not something we can conceive of in our minds is a really critical idea.  Baha’u’llah’s son ‘Abdu’l-Baha’ made this point several times in his presentations in the West.

…That which a human being would conjure up in his mind is but the fanciful image of his human condition, it doth not encompass God’s reality but rather is encompassed by it. That is, man grasps his own illusory conceptions, but the Reality of Divinity can never be grasped: It, Itself, encompasses all created things, and all created things are in Its grasp. That Divinity which man doth imagine for himself exists only in his mind, not in truth. Man, however, exists both in his mind and in truth; thus man is greater than that fanciful reality which he is able to imagine.

What we see in the world is not God himself but the attributes of God, like how a painting reflects the qualities and attributes of the painter.  Sometimes referred to as the “names and attributes of God”, these qualities- that everything in creation possesses- are the essential reality of every “thing”.  Everything in creation, including us, is in its essence a reflection of the qualities of God that exist within it. 

Let’s go over this again with a different framing.  The Baha’i Writings tell us that, while God is beyond our ability to understand, the entire creation is itself a “revelation” of the qualities of God in all creation.  The qualities of God are revealed to us through the world itself. In the passage below, Baha’u’llah gives an analogy that God is like the sun and the everything we know is the light that emanates from the sun.

God is immeasurably exalted above all things. Every created being however reveals His signs which are but emanations from Him and not His Own Self. All these signs are reflected and can be seen in the book of existence, and the scrolls that depict the shape and pattern of the universe are indeed a most great book. Therein every man of insight can perceive that which would lead to the Straight Path… Consider the rays of the sun whose light hath encompassed the world. The rays emanate from the sun and reveal its nature, but are not the sun itself. Whatsoever can be discerned on earth amply demonstrates the power of God, His knowledge and the outpourings of His bounty, while He Himself is immeasurably exalted above all creatures.

Baha’u’llah also tells us that “nature is, in its essence, the expression of” God’s will.  This is a very important idea because people have a tendency to look for God in “miracles” or other events that break natural law.  With this one simple statement, we are being told that nature itself is the miracle, that the world as we know it itself is the expression of the Divine Intelligence that underlies all reality. 

So imagine you are a drop of paint living in a painting created by a painter you can never know directly.  Or, to use a modern analogy, you are living in a video game, a virtual reality. What could you know about the video game maker?  Since you are living in a different dimension of reality, you simply can’t know the creator directly, but you can connect to the qualities of the painter or video game creator as they are reflected in the world you live in. 

This is what Baha’i Writings tell us- that God is “revealed” to us through creation itself- “to His creation through His creation”. Some people express that they feel God within nature and the beauty of the environment.  That feeling is actually us sensing the presence of God in the grandness of creation. 

Every created thing in the whole universe is but a door leading into His knowledge, a sign of His sovereignty, a revelation of His names, a symbol of His majesty, a token of His power, a means of admittance into His straight Path… (Baha’u’llah)

But the most profound sense of God we can have is the revelation of God that exists within our own selves-

“Behold with the eye of the heart. Verily, thy truth, the truth of thy being, is the divinity of thy Lord revealed unto thee and through thee. Thou art He Himself, and He is thou thyself, except that indeed thou art that thou art, and He is that He is.” (The Bab)

The purpose of life is for us to connect with our Creator and express the “revelation” of God within us most fully and most perfectly.  When we do this, we are at the same time coming closer to God and coming closer to our own innermost true selves- as our essence is itself a revelation of God’s beauty.  Humans are like “homing pigeons” for God, those birds that, wherever you take them in the world, they always find their way back home. 

We are not born with these realities evident to us. We need to be taught.   As we have observed, many people have a sense of God, a feeling of something transcendent within nature and within themselves, but it can remain undefined and veiled to us, and have no impact on how they behave or treat others.  Baha’u’llah describes us as “unlit candles” who don’t realize the flame potentially within us.  Imagine a child, a girl, in a poor ghetto of the world who is actually the most naturally gifted mathematician who has ever lived. Without some education, the child can never demonstrate the powers that lie within her. She could go through life completely unaware of her ability.  But she is lucky and gets a good teacher who, through education, brings out the qualities that she inherently possesses and makes them manifest to others.  This is where revealed religion comes into our understanding of God because the founders of the great religions are the educators that bring out the qualities that lie within us.

Let’s make a simple observation.  Think of the people you know who believe in God and have an active spirituality.  If you are like most people, your friends who do have a close relationship with God are aligned with one of the great religions of humanity- they are Christian, or Muslim, or a religious Jew, or Hindu.  In other words, the energy for their belief and enthusiasm about God is not coming from some philosophical reflections, but a spiritual connection with a religion- in most cases- a revealed religion.  There are always exceptions, but it is fair to say that people who have a strong belief and conception of God are almost always connected with a Christ, or a Muhammad, or one of the other founders of the other great religions.  People who aren’t connected have a belief that tends to be more latent, if they have a belief at all. 

There is actually a profound statement about the nature of humanity’s relationship to God in that simple observation.  While the universal revelation of God is present in all creation and within ourselves, and has been for all time, it is so general that we might not even recognize it, nor does it necessarily lead to a change in how we act or treat each other.  For that reason, God  speaks to us again “through His creation”, in the form of a human being who speaks our language and  can manifest to us the Will of God in a manner we can easily understand and appreciate.  These are the Revelations that have founded the great religions and make God “manifest” to us in a specific sense.  That is why Baha’u’llah referred to the “Prophets” or “Messengers” of God as “Manifestations of God” because they manifest God’s will to humanity in a specific sense.  Through them, humans learn to make these spiritual connections with themselves, with others, and with nature. 

Baha’u’llah describes these Manifestations of God in many ways, using far more descriptive terms than just “Prophet’ or “Messenger”.  Describing the Manifestations of God, He says-

“These sanctified Mirrors, these Daysprings of ancient glory, are, one and all, the Exponents on earth of Him Who is the central Orb of the universe, its Essence and ultimate Purpose. From Him proceed their knowledge and power; from Him is derived their sovereignty. The beauty of their countenance is but a reflection of His image, and their revelation a sign of His deathless glory. They are the Treasuries of Divine knowledge, and the Repositories of celestial wisdom. Through them is transmitted a grace that is infinite, and by them is revealed the Light that can never fade.…”

In another passage, He says they “are the channels of God’s all-pervasive grace. Led by the light of unfailing guidance, and invested with supreme sovereignty, They are commissioned to use the inspiration of Their words, the effusions of Their infallible grace and the sanctifying breeze of Their Revelation for the cleansing of every longing heart and receptive spirit from the dross and dust of earthly cares and limitations. Then, and only then, will the Trust of God, latent in the reality of man, emerge… from behind the veil of concealment, and implant the ensign of its revealed glory upon the summits of men’s hearts.”

The revelations of God are a natural phenomenon, as natural as gravity and the second law of thermodynamics. Actually, they are more like the spring time, which periodically comes and refreshes the world, causing flowers and trees to blossom and grow. A new Revelation is like a “divine springtime”, causing faith to again awaken in people’s hearts and reminding us of the spiritual connections at the root of who we are.

It is also what essentially defines our conceptions of God.  So, for a Christian, his or her conception of God is formed by Christ himself, as Jesus said- “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship to the Father, has made him known”.  And in another passage- “If you trust me, you are trusting not only me, but God who sent me.  For when you see Me, you are seeing the one who sent Me. I have come as a light to shine in this dark world, so that all who put their trust in Me will no longer remain in the dark.”

Christ turned a nebulous abstract entity that we can’t quite grasp, into a reality that was palpable, that we could love in the way we love other people, a reality that was personal.  In that way, by speaking to our humanity, we could then find the revelation of God within ourselves, in others, and in the rest of creation.  How many people read the stories in the Gospels and found  their inner selves as a result?  It’s influence has been almost inconceivably great.  And this all happened because God spoke in a way and through a medium we could understand. This truth was not confined to Christ, but to all the Manifestations of God. It is through them that our concepts of God are given form. It is through them that we know God’s will in a personal and specific way.  As Christ said- “I am the Way, the Truth, and Life and nobody gets to the Father but through Me.” The Manifestations are not God, but they are God to us.

This fundamental principle is enormously important in understanding humanity’s relationship to God, both in history and in the modern day. Because it is the Manifestations of God that make God real to us, turn God from an abstract philosophical entity to something we can love and serve, the presence of God in our lives primarily means the presence of one of these Revelations in our hearts.  They are the ones who make that intellectual and spiritual connection between the Supreme Intelligence at the root of all existence, and a good and moral life. When their power and influence on humanity wanes, so does belief in God as we no longer have the primary path we used to find Him in the first place. The reason less people believe in God today is because the religions that represented Him on earth no longer have the intellectual and spiritual power they once did. The Revelations of the past have become old.

As humanity’s knowledge of God is constantly growing and evolving, the religion of God also must be renewed. Baha’u’llah’s Revelation is the renewal of religion for our time. As He states-

“Know thou that they who are truly wise have likened the world unto the human temple. As the body of man needs a garment to clothe it, so the body of mankind must needs be adorned with the mantle of justice and wisdom. Its robe is the Revelation vouchsafed unto it by God. Whenever this robe hath fulfilled its purpose, the Almighty will assuredly renew it. For every age requires a fresh measure of the light of God. Every Divine Revelation hath been sent down in a manner that best befitted the circumstances of the age in which it hath appeared.”

We’ll go into more detail on the concept of “progressive revelation” in the next essay, but before we leave this topic, we need to address an area of discomfort for many people with revealed religion.  Appropriately, we naturally repel from the idea that we are worshipping a “man”, as opposed to a Force or some other abstract reality. A person who claims to be God seems too personal, and a part of us would probably rather keep our conceptions of God more universal.  Plus, for every Christ, Muhammad, or Baha’u’llah, there are scores of pretenders who make claims to divinity, some for sincere reasons, others not.  It can be truthfully be said that the overwhelming majority of people who make claim to some form of divinity are deceiving themselves and deceiving others.  How do I know I’m not worshipping some crazy guy?

The beauty of divine revelation through a human being is that it makes God personal and connectable on a human level, but that also adds a human factor that can feel strange, particularly before you have had a chance to study the religion in detail. After all, the person of the Manifestation is a man, who comes from a certain culture, speaks a particular language, follows certain customs- all of which may be foreign to you. 

Baha’u’llah assuages our fears in this regard, pointing out that the man is inconsequential to what we are worshipping.  We are actually worshipping the Reality that shines through the man- the Revelation of God itself, and human beings can naturally tell the difference.  Baha’u’llah makes this point again and again in His Writings, like in His Tablet to the King of Persia-

O King! I was but a man like others, asleep upon My couch, when lo, the breezes of the All-Glorious were wafted over Me, and taught Me the knowledge of all that hath been. This thing is not from Me, but from One Who is Almighty and All-Knowing. And He bade Me lift up My voice between earth and heaven, and for this there befell Me what hath caused the tears of every man of understanding to flow…This is but a leaf which the winds of the will of thy Lord, the Almighty, the All-Praised, have stirred…The evanescent is as nothing before Him Who is the Ever-Abiding. His all-compelling summons hath reached Me, and caused Me to speak His praise amidst all people.

In another passage, Baha’u’llah states clearly that His whole purpose was not to call attention to Himself as a person, that he “had no intention of establishing any position or distinction for Himself. The purpose hath rather been to attract the souls, through the sublimity of His words, unto the summit of transcendent glory.. Unto this bear witness My heart, My Pen, My inner and My outer Being. God grant that all men may turn unto the treasuries latent within their own selves.”

While the Manifestations of God are human beings, the whole point is to see them in their true transcendent reality-

The door of the knowledge of the Ancient of Days being thus closed in the face of all beings, the Source of infinite grace (God), … hath caused those luminous Gems of Holiness (the Manifestations) to appear out of the realm of the spirit, in the noble form of the human temple, and be made manifest unto all men, that they may impart unto the world the mysteries of the unchangeable Being, and tell of the subtleties of His imperishable Essence…From Him proceed their knowledge and power; from Him is derived their sovereignty. The beauty of their countenance is but a reflection of His image, and their revelation a sign of His deathless glory.

God is our true ‘Beloved” who appears in different “attire”- a different outer form- from age to age, but invites us to recognize that inner reality.

O My servants! It behoveth you to refresh and revive your souls through the gracious favors which, in this Divine, this soul-stirring Springtime, are being showered upon you. The Day Star of His great glory hath shed its radiance upon you, and the clouds of His limitless grace have overshadowed you. How high the reward of him that hath not deprived himself of so great a bounty, nor failed to recognize the beauty of his Best-Beloved in this, His new attire.

Moreover , each of the Revelations also has a common inner Voice that we can learn to recognize and appreciate as being common to all the Revelations.

Strive, O people, to gain admittance into this vast Immensity for which God ordained neither beginning nor end, in which His voice hath been raised, and over which have been wafted the sweet savors of holiness and glory. Divest not yourselves of the Robe of grandeur, neither suffer your hearts to be deprived of remembering your Lord, nor your ears of hearkening unto the sweet melodies of His wondrous, His sublime, His all-compelling, His clear, and most eloquent voice.

As you can see, and will be more apparent as we explore the Writings of Baha’u’llah, He speaks with a Voice that is transcendent and sublime.  You come to not see them as the words of a man at all. The same thing happened with Christ and the words of the Quran.  In the heart of a Baha’i, as with a Christian and a Muslim, the words of the Manifestation of God are the Voice of God, spoken to us in a language and a form that we can understand and connect with.  There is a mystical connection between that inner Voice of God, or the Word of God- as expressed through each of the Revelations- and our own souls.  It’s hard to explain but not hard to feel.  There’s a rhythm to the Word that starts our feet tapping and reverberates with us on a very intimate level.   

So let’s summarize the main points.  We started by reasoning from what we know about the natural world to conclude that it is reasonable to believe that there is an Intelligence at the root of all existence.  We meditated a bit on that Intelligence and concluded It was vast and ancient, and we are completely dependent upon It.  But we also pointed out that such an Intelligence is not the kind of thing we can encompass with our minds or meet face to face like we would something or someone else.  Our relationship to that Intelligence has to be a very unique relationship, unlike any others that we have.  From the Baha’i writings, and this is corroborated in the Quran and the Bible, we learned that the nature of that Intelligence is imprinted on the reality of all creation, including within ourselves, but that truth can be veiled to us without revealed religion. It is revealed religion that helps us make the connections between the spiritual things we natively feel, and educates us about the powers that lie within each of us.  Those Revelations are critical to our belief and relationship to God. Without them, our belief wavers as we can no longer make the intellectual and spiritual connections to the Source of our life.